# Noindex Noindex tells search engines to leave a page out of their index. You use it when a page should never show on search. If you add it to a page that earns impressions or clicks, you remove that traffic at the next crawl. Updated 2026-09-13 · Source: https://porteur.ai/glossary/noindex ## What noindex means Noindex is an instruction on a page that says do not include this URL in the search index. Google and other engines drop the page from results when they see it. You add it either as a meta robots tag in the HTML or as an HTTP X Robots Tag header. Robots.txt cannot set noindex for a URL. ```html # HTTP response header X-Robots-Tag: noindex ``` ## When to use noindex on a small site - Checkout, account, and dashboard pages like /checkout or /app/settings - Thank you or confirmation pages like /signup/thanks - Internal search results pages like /search?q=abc - Staging or test areas that are not public content - Hard duplicates you cannot redirect, like a printer view Do not noindex pages that could bring qualified traffic with a small edit. For example, a thin /pricing page often ranks on brand queries once you add the plan details and a clear title. ## How to check and measure noindex 1. **Check the page itself** Open yourproduct.com/page, View Source, and search for meta name="robots". If content includes noindex, the page is set to stay out. If not present, check the HTTP headers for X Robots Tag. 2. **Use the command line** Run: curl -I https://yourproduct.com/page and look for X-Robots-Tag: noindex in the response. 3. **Check Search Console indexing** In the Page indexing report, look under Why pages aren’t indexed for Excluded by 'noindex' tag. That lists URLs Google saw with noindex. 4. **Check performance before you add noindex** Open the Performance report, filter to the exact page, and look at impressions, clicks, CTR and average position for the last 28 days. An impression is counted when a link to your page appears on a results page a user loaded for web search. If the page has meaningful impressions or clicks, rethink noindex. > Search Console’s query table omits rare and anonymised queries, so its rows add up to less than the page total. Judge the page by its page-level totals. ## Fixing a wrong noindex and safer options - Remove the meta robots noindex from the HTML, or remove the X Robots Tag header - Request indexing in Search Console’s URL inspection after you deploy, then give it time to recrawl - If the content is a duplicate, prefer a 301 redirect to the canonical URL - If you must keep both, use a canonical link to the primary URL rather than noindex on both - If the issue is soft quality, improve the page and internal links rather than hiding it A fixed page looks like /guides/getting-started without a noindex tag, linked from /guides, and showing impressions rising in the next 28 days. ## Common traps - Blocking with robots.txt instead of using noindex, which can prevent crawling but will not add noindex to the URL - Accidentally shipping noindex sitewide from a staging template - Using noindex to hide price changes or weak copy instead of fixing the page - Noindexing a blog category or /guides page that has internal link value - Leaving noindex on a page you link to from the header or footer, which wastes crawl and confuses signals > Noindex removes a URL from results when seen. It does not remove other URLs that duplicate the content. Handle duplicates with redirects or canonicals. ## Questions ### What does noindex mean? It tells search engines not to include a page in their index. When a crawler processes the tag or header, the URL is dropped from search results. ### Does Google crawl noindex pages? Google can still crawl a noindex page to discover its links and to see that it should stay out of the index. If you also block crawling in robots.txt, Google may keep an old version for longer because it cannot see the noindex tag. ### How do I check if a page has noindex? View Source for meta name robots content noindex, or check the HTTP response headers for X Robots Tag. In Search Console, see Page indexing, Excluded by 'noindex' tag, to confirm Google saw it. ### How do I noindex a whole site? Add a meta robots noindex tag to all HTML templates or return an X Robots Tag noindex header for all routes. Do not rely on robots.txt for this. Remove it before you launch, or search traffic will be zero. ### What is the difference between noindex and disallow? Noindex is a directive to keep a URL out of results. Disallow in robots.txt tells crawlers not to fetch a path. Disallow does not set noindex, and can stop Google seeing the noindex tag. ### How long does it take to reindex after removing noindex? Google needs to recrawl the page. Use URL inspection to Request Indexing and link to the page internally. Timing varies. Expect to see changes after the next crawl rather than instantly. ## Read next - [Indexation](https://porteur.ai/glossary/indexation): Indexation means a page is stored in Google’s index and can appear in search. Here is how to check status, read Page indexing, and fix what blocks it. - [Canonical tags: what they do and the mistakes that cost rankings](https://porteur.ai/guides/canonical-tag): What a canonical tag does, when to use one, the mistakes that cost rankings, and how to check and fix canonicals on a small site. - [Alternate page with proper canonical tag: what Search Console means](https://porteur.ai/guides/alternate-page-with-proper-canonical-tag): What this Search Console status means, when to ignore it, when it hides the wrong page, and the exact checks and fixes to set the right canonical. - [How to use Google Search Console in ten minutes a week](https://porteur.ai/guides/how-to-use-google-search-console): A quick weekly routine: set four filters, compare 28 days, check pages then queries, and fix three findings, without getting lost in noise. - [The Search Console performance report, column by column](https://porteur.ai/guides/search-console-performance-report): Every column in the Google Search Console performance report explained with the traps that trip small sites, and how to act on each. - [robots.txt](https://porteur.ai/glossary/robots-txt): robots.txt tells crawlers which URLs they may fetch. See what it does not do, how to test it, what to put in it, and how to handle AI bots. - [Meta robots tag](https://porteur.ai/glossary/meta-robots-tag): The meta robots tag tells crawlers what to do with a page. See each directive, how to set it, how to test it, and the robots.txt trap. Paste your homepage URL to see, in about thirty seconds, which pages look indexable on your site and who already ranks on the searches around it. Free check: https://porteur.ai/